Aston Martin Day

As reported earlier in this blog I won a competition for a day with Aston Martin and their Vanquish S supercar. I had to fly to Amsterdam on Mon for IFRA (see below post) but managed to catch a last minute flight back to allow me to accept the prize....

The day started with breakfast at the Aston Martin factory - full VIP treatment was given to me and the other 3 winners. In fact, this was the first time they have done this - until now the ONLY way to do what I was doing was to actually buy an Vanquish S (a mere £177,000 before options). Breakfast was followed by a brief introduction to Aston Martin by their PR guy whilst we were waiting for the race drivers to get ready. After this we split into 2 groups of two and I was assigned to drive in the morning and visist the factory in the afternoon.

I opted for the perlescant white Vanquish S and we set off towards Milbrooke proving grounds. Once there I spent two hours driving and learning about the Vanquish S. Highlights were many but included a 67m 100-0mph brake test, being told to try and keep in under 120mph through the puddles, 135mph forcing Porches out of the way and to top it all driving several miles with no hands at 100mph in the rain steering the car with the throttle round the banked circuit!!!!!

After the best 2 hours driving of my life we went back to the factory for lunch (again VIP treatment) and spent the rest of the afternoon seeing how the Vanquish S is built - fascinating! We also had a chance to look around the Heritage restoration works were we saw Paul McCartney's old DB5 and the DB5 that had just come back from 007 Casino Royale filming :)

Best driving day of my life yet - thanks Aston Martin!